


Engraved

by potentiality_26



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Amnesia, Fix-It, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-11 04:04:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11706450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potentiality_26/pseuds/potentiality_26
Summary: Finally the boy said, “Uh.  Hi.”  He fidgeted a bit more, and finally gave a half-hearted sort of wave.  “I’m Eggsy.”Harry felt his eyes widen and his gut lurch. “Eggsy,” he repeated.  He had already found his soulmark, of course- already looked from it to his face in the mirror and concluded that he had most likely forgotten half a lifetime with this Eggsy. But seeing Eggsy now, Harry realized that it couldn’t have been anywhere near that long.Harry and Eggsy, finding each other.





	Engraved

**Author's Note:**

> Additional story note: depending on how you feel about amnesiac characters in sexual/romantic situations, some of what happens in this story could be construed as dub-con. I think it's fine, but your mileage may vary- so give this a pass if that might be a problem for you. 
> 
> Not Brit-picked.

Harry’s soulmark was small, a single word: _Eggsy_.  Harry’s soulmate telling him his name, Harry thought.  What kind of name Eggsy was meant to be- what kind of _anything_ \- Harry didn’t know, but at least he was unlikely to mistake it.

The mark was located just between Harry’s fourth and fifth rib, curving slightly upward.  When Harry became a Kingsman, that was precisely the spot where he was taught to slide in a knife and reach a man’s heart.  The more he considered the nature of soulmates, chains supposedly forged of love and an unbearable weakness for a spy to have, the more Harry thought it was apt- and never more so than when he finally heard the name he had spent so long wondering about.

It was not unlike being stabbed, in truth- to crouch down before a child he had just rendered fatherless and realize that _this_ was meant to be his mate.

He was actually grateful to the mother for refusing his help.  He didn’t know what he would do if he was forced to see this boy- this Eggsy- regularly. He wasn’t sure he wanted a soulmate at all, in point of fact- but he wouldn’t even contemplate one that couldn’t come to him fully grown.

And- when Eggsy finally came- he did rather come too late, didn’t he? 

Harry listened with the bug he had planted and wondered just what sort of man he thought he was, leaving his soulmate in that life without question.  Eggsy didn’t mention their connection, not outside the police station, or at the pub, or in the tailor’s shop, but-  

But Eggsy was not what Harry had imagined.  Harry thought he had Eggsy figured out until he referenced My Fair Lady, of all things.  And that was just the beginning.  He began to like Eggsy, and from there... from there he began to hope.  He wanted things he had never thought himself capable of wanting before.  He wanted to build a home with his soulmate.  He let himself believe that maybe Eggsy hadn’t spoken to him yet because he wanted them to stand on equal terms first, or because he was actually unaware of what was between them- they had met so long ago, after all, and he had been so young- and would actually be overjoyed if Harry told him the truth.  Once Eggsy became a knight, Harry decided, he would go to him.  If he was wrong to hope, if his inattentiveness had alienated his soulmate beyond recovery, he would let it be.  But if not... If he could win Eggsy somehow...

But Eggsy wouldn’t become a knight, would he?  Those instincts of his that Harry already so valued led him astray, and with Chester King’s mocking _didn’t I tell you he couldn't do it_ still ringing in Harry’s ears they fought, bitterly.  On his way to Kentucky Harry thought of little but how to fix things between them- and then everything went to hell and Harry had to face the possibility that he would not live to fix anything. 

Valentine pulled the trigger and Harry, against all odds, survived.  He woke from his second long sleep of that year, this time in Kingsman's medical wing- not that he recognized it, or anything else.

Harry had no idea who he was. 

*   *   *

The man who called himself Merlin had been in and out of Harry’s room at least a dozen times before the boy came.

Harry didn’t know much at that point.  He knew his own name, for one thing.  He knew he was getting medical attention, he knew Merlin was a colleague, he knew that whatever had happened to him was work-related.  He knew that work-related, for him, did not mean an accident with a forklift.  He knew that if he had loved ones they were not in evidence.  Busy, perhaps.  Nonexistent, perhaps.

He knew other things, too- impersonal facts like how language worked and how many nations there were and how to load a gun.  He was simply disconnected from that knowledge.  He felt like himself, in as much as he was able to judge, but the actual memories he had formed as he came to _be_ himself… those were closed to him.  He knew he spoke Italian- which he did, to one of the doctors- but he could not remember learning.  He knew he had studied butterflies- because he could name the types by heart- but he had no idea why they interested him or for how long he had collected them.  He knew he had seen My Fair Lady- a stray reference to the film made perfect sense to him- but he wasn't sure why his heart stuttered in his chest at the very thought of it. 

And then the boy came. 

He was a beautiful young man- and clearly a very nervous one. 

His brows were drawn over lovely blue-green eyes, and he wiped sweaty palms on his jeans several times as he stood before Harry.  He didn’t speak for a moment, he just looked at Harry- and it might have been all the time Harry had spent alone with white walls and beeping monitors, but he was content to look back.  The boy’s jawline was a work of art.    

Finally the boy said, “Uh.  Hi.”  He fidgeted a bit more, and finally gave a half-hearted sort of wave.  “I’m Eggsy.”

Harry felt his eyes widen and his gut lurch. “Eggsy,” he repeated.  He had already found his soulmark, of course- already looked from it to his face in the mirror and concluded that he had most likely forgotten half a lifetime with this Eggsy. But seeing Eggsy now, Harry realized that it couldn’t have been anywhere near that long.  He realized too that his worst fear- that this person was already gone from his life, and now he couldn’t remember ever knowing them- wasn’t his reality after all. 

Eggsy must have heard the recognition in his voice, because he rocked back a little in surprise and then straightened up.  “You remember me?”  He must also have already been given to understand that Harry wouldn’t. 

“No,” Harry admitted.  “But… come.”  He patted the edge of his bed.  “Sit and talk.”

Though he still looked a little uncertain, Eggsy obeyed.

He was very warm, and though his clothes weren’t as formal as those of Harry’s other visitors he smelled of good quality soap and cologne.  He picked silently at Harry’s bedclothes for a moment and finally said, “Sorry I ain’t been to see you before.”

“It’s quite all right,” Harry said quickly.  It was easy- too easy, perhaps- to forget how lonely this room had felt over the three days he had been awake in it- waiting as he had been without knowing if there was anyone left to wait for.  It was easy to forgive now that Eggsy was here.  “This must be disconcerting for you.”  He couldn’t imagine what it would be like, to have his soulmate look at him as a stranger twice over.

“Guess it is,” Eggsy said, settling a little closer as he accepted that Harry wasn’t upset with him.  “And I been busy.”

“You’re a Kingsman?”

“Yeah.  It wasn’t usual, what happened with me, but… Merlin needed the help.”  He hesitated.  “He made me Galahad.”

“ _I_ was Galahad, yes?”

Eggsy nodded miserably.  Perhaps he hadn’t accepted that Harry wasn’t upset with him after all.

Harry reached out and touched Eggsy's hand.  “It’s all right.  I’m not exactly fit for it now, am I?  Whyever would I be upset with you for doing what needed doing?”

Eggsy nodded again.  He looked unconvinced, but his hand moved underneath Harry's- twisting to grip his fingers.  

“There’s something else bothering you,” Harry said as he realized it.

Eggsy looked from their joined hands to Harry’s face, keen eyes flashing.  “How do you know that?”

Harry shrugged.  “You rather wear your heart on your sleeve.”  Harry might not remember Eggsy, but he certainly felt as though he had been learning to read him for an age. 

Eggsy looked away from Harry again.  “We fought the last time we talked,” he admitted.  “And I thought a lot about how I’d apologize if I could, and now I can but you- you ain’t got no idea what I’m even talking about.”

“Everyone says things they don’t mean in the heat of the moment.”  Eggsy was quiet and Harry didn’t care for it.  He didn’t believe for second that his soulmate was normally so cowed.  There was a light and a strength in him that Harry could already picture himself having grown to depend on, and he didn’t like to see it so subdued- especially when he formed a suspicion as to the cause.  “Including me.”

Eggsy gave a little wince.

Harry reached out with his free hand to lift that lovely chin.  Eggsy had a bit of stubble starting, but his skin was soft.  “You’re not the only one you think ought to apologize, are you?” Harry asked quietly.

“It ain’t like that,” Eggsy said, chewing his lip.  Harry longed to touch him there, to smooth his fingertips across that lush mouth, but he kept still.  “I’m just... I guess I’m scared that you did mean it, you know?”

Harry wanted to deny having meant anything that could have made Eggsy look so sad, but he knew that wouldn’t help.  He couldn’t apologize for words that he couldn’t remember having said in a situation that he couldn’t remember being in.  His thumb slid across Eggsy’s jaw and then he pushed his fingers back into Eggsy’s hair, cradling his skull.  The desire to kiss Eggsy was strong- and it felt like every other instinct Harry had found in himself without completely knowing where it came from.  He didn't, though, because he didn’t think their first kiss- their first kiss that he could remember, anyway- ought to be like that.  And he wasn’t sure Eggsy would at all appreciate being kissed by a version of his soulmate who had known him for less than an hour. 

Still, he had to do something.  Eggsy clearly needed comfort, and if Harry was honest with himself he needed to provide it.  He tugged Eggsy closer, drawing him into a hug.  Eggsy made a soft noise and went, burying his face in the crook of Harry’s neck and returning the embrace with energy. 

Harry felt something in him relax for the first time since he’d woken up.  Eggsy felt so good- so _right_ \- in his arms.  It was enough for now.

It had to be. 

*   *   *

The soulmarks appeared at some point during a person’s first sixteen years of life.  Usually it was after puberty, but there was no way to tell exactly when it would be.

Eggsy’s came late- he was almost seventeen, half desperate for one and half sure that he wouldn’t get one, didn’t actually even want one, not after what losing her soulmate had done to his mother.  And the words themselves- _What’s your name, young man?_ \- were likewise mixed when they finally came.  The joy of thinking that he would probably not have to wait long was balanced by his annoyance at the nature of them- infantilizing, posh, was his soulmate a teacher or some shit?

Worse still was the placement, heavy like a hand on the back of his neck.  Sometimes Eggsy found it calming, the thought of his soulmate’s touch there, soothing and grounding him.  Other times, he felt stifled by a possessiveness he had yet to experience. 

One good thing about Eggsy’s mark was that he had to let someone get pretty close for them to see it.  His shirt collar mainly covered it up, and since he didn’t like having someone at his back most of the time anyway, it turned out all right.  Sometimes Eggsy even managed to convince himself that the mark wasn’t even there, and that he didn’t mind about that. 

And then he met Harry.

The job, training to be a Kingsman, it was the last thing Eggsy would have expected in a million years- but it was Harry he really couldn’t believe.  He had never imagined someone like Harry even existing, let alone allowing someone like Eggsy anywhere near him.  

Sometimes, when the training got hard, Eggsy made himself feel better by imagining that Harry was his soulmate.  It would make sense, in a way, of why no one else had come along when Eggsy got less ‘young’ with every passing year, why Harry had stayed away, why he would seem so fond in one moment and so distant in the next.  But then came the dog test, and then their fight, and- well, that made a lot more sense, didn’t it?  That Harry had a soulmate back in his country manor or some shit, someone just as special as he was, and Eggsy was just a charity case.  A final favor to his dead father and nothing more.

Falling for someone who was unlikely to be his soulmate was pretty dumb even for Eggsy, but it turned out he wasn’t finished yet.  Harry had to go and get himself shot, and then Eggsy was also in love with a dead man.  He said love because when Valentine pulled that trigger he realized that whether Harry was _what’s your name young man_ or not, whether they were matched or not, the hole Harry was leaving in Eggsy’s heart would still be there, as black and gaping as any soulmate could have left behind. 

But then Harry wasn’t dead after all.  He’d just forgotten Eggsy. 

He’d forgotten a lot of things, but the fact that he’d forgotten Eggsy was the part that hurt.  Not because he was cold or unkind- because he was the opposite.  Eggsy felt so guilty taking everything this Harry had to give.  Just sitting with him, talking to him, burrowing against his broad chest and being held by him- because this Harry was affectionate in ways he had never been with all his memories- became habit all too quickly.

Eggsy knew that he was setting himself up for a fall.  The question was- how hard would he crash?  

*   *   *

Once he started visiting Harry in the hospital wing, Eggsy couldn’t stop.  He could tell himself that Harry, who had little else to do, would be disappointed to see less of him, but he knew he was actually being a lot less altruistic than that- and eventually something would happen to make him admit as much to himself, and just possibly to Harry too.  

That something turned out to be Merlin. 

It was about a week in, and he walked in on them together.  All they were doing was sitting and talking, but they were sitting too close and talking too quietly for the intimacy of it to pass Merlin’s notice, not when he knew exactly how close they actually were- and weren’t.

“Well,” he said.  “This is cozy.”  

He was looking at Eggsy like he was a criminal who had tricked his way into Harry’s arms- and Eggsy would be offended except that in a way he was and he had.  Having as he did no memories, Harry knew very little about Eggsy- and he had never touched him like this, never given the smallest sign of wanting to, and if he only did it now...

Eggsy backed up, scooting as far from Harry as the bed would accommodate. 

“Did you want something?” Harry asked Merlin.  Eggsy wasn’t meeting his eyes, but he could hear Harry’s confusion in his tone. 

“Just to check in on you, but I can see that you’re... busy.”  Merlin, on the other hand, was starting to seem more amused than anything.

Eggsy turned to look him square in the face.  “We were just talking,” he said firmly.  “It’s nothing important.”  Harry went still behind him, and it occurred to Eggsy that maybe, to him, their topic of conversation had been vitally important. 

Harry had opinions about things when he didn’t focus too much on where they came from.  He was lighter in himself than Eggsy remembered, more open, but otherwise he just seemed... like Harry.  He felt strongly about how a gentleman should behave, and what ingredients did and did not belong in a martini.  But these things slipped off his tongue thoughtlessly, in discussion about other topics.  If Eggsy asked him his favorite color or his favorite movie or his favorite food, he came up with nothing as surely as if Eggsy asked him how they met, or Merlin’s real name, or if he was as scared as Eggsy was when Valentine raised his gun in that parking lot.

So he and Eggsy had been finding out what he liked the old fashioned way.  Eggsy tried out different brightly colored ties, brought him films on his tablet, and snuck in takeaway.  That last he had been a little worried about- after all, Harry didn’t know his own food allergies, and his file was not particularly forthcoming on the subject- but Harry rightfully pointed out that they were in the safest place in the world for him to have an allergic reaction.  So far he hadn’t.  And Eggsy told him stories about his own experiences- with suits and movies, and with cuisines and the countries they came from.  These anecdotes probably confused Harry, coming as they did from the two very different lives Eggsy had lived- the one before Harry and Kingsman, and the one after- but he gave no sign of finding them anything but fascinating.  They had just been discussing what offering Eggsy would bring next- hardly a state secret, but as far as Eggsy knew Harry didn't have much else to think about. 

That didn’t mean Harry was some kind of empty receptacle for Eggsy’s stories, however much he clearly liked hearing them.  He talked about things he knew, from what Merlin had told him or from what he had read in the reports they were letting him look at, since Kingsman could hardly send him clueless back into the world.  In some cases he let Eggsy fill in the blanks for him, but most of the time he seemed to know well enough what he would or wouldn’t have done. 

Eggsy knew that Harry was waiting- hoping, even- for more stories about the two of them.  Eggsy saw how eager he was, and he wanted to oblige, but at the same time he was afraid to.  He could tell Harry about his house, about the headlines in his office, about the way Harry saved him in the pub that first day and how incredible it was- but Eggsy knew that the more he talked about the time they had spent together, the more obvious how little there was would become.  Harry had latched on to him as a true friend, and sooner or later he would figure out that Eggsy actually wasn’t.

Eggsy was snatched out of these morose thoughts when he realized that what made Harry go still was not what he had heard Eggsy say, but what he had seen on Eggsy's neck when he turned his head.  Harry moved closer, carefully, and his hand hovered at the place where his soulmark was partly, but not wholly, obscured by his collar.    

Merlin’s look of amusement only deepened.

“May I?” Harry asked softly.   

Eggsy swallowed.  “Yeah, okay.”  He had no idea why Harry would want to, though. 

And then Harry’s fingers were brushing over his neck and carefully pushing down his collar.  And then he was quiet for a moment that seemed to stretch years before he said, “How young?”

“What?” Eggsy managed.

“How young?” Harry repeated. 

Merlin figured out what Harry was trying to ask long before Eggsy did.  “Six.”

Eggsy was still terribly confused.  “What?”

“Christ,” Harry said.

“Don’t worry,” Merlin told him.  “You did nothing improper.”

Eggsy finally managed to muster an entire, "What the fuck is going on?"

He had known since they met outside the police station that Harry was the one who had given him the medal, which meant that they had met before.  He had tried so hard to remember exactly what words had been exchanged between them, but he hadn’t managed it- and he certainly hadn’t worked up the courage to ask his mother if _she_ remembered. 

He knew intellectually that Harry could have been _what’s your name, young man_ all along, that he could simply not remember it- but he wasn’t sure he could believe it for even a second and be wrong.

“Harry’s your soulmate- or didn’t you know?” Merlin said.

“You didn’t _know_ ,” Harry said. 

“What- how-” Eggsy said.

Merlin crossed his arms over his chest, lips twitching.  “He registered it with me the day you met, his first words to you and yours to him.  ‘What’s your name young man?’ and-

“‘Eggsy,’” Harry and Eggsy- and Merlin- said at once.

After that, Merlin might as well not have been in the room.  Eggsy turned back to Harry, scooting close to him again.  “Harry,” he whispered, anything more drying up on his tongue. 

Harry swallowed heavily.  “I didn’t forget it, then?” 

“What?”

“Our first kiss, our first date, our first... everything.”

“No,” Eggsy managed after a moment.  It was... a lot to take in, that Harry had been wanting those firsts and believing that they might be lost to him.  “No you didn’t.”

Harry’s smile was slow and gorgeous, and Eggsy’s heart definitely stuttered a little in his chest at the sight of it.  The sensation only got worse when Harry reached out and cupped his face gently in both hands.  “Eggsy,” he murmured, thumbs brushing over Eggsy’s cheekbones.

“Harry.”  Eggsy’s mouth was dry.

“I should give you some time alone,” Merlin said- a very loud reminder that, though forgotten, he hadn't yet done so.  Eggsy started back from Harry guiltily.

Harry though- he didn’t look guilty at all.  He was smiling softly, and he settled against Eggsy again as soon as the door clicked shut behind Merlin.  He was so warm and solid, and he felt so good.  “Where were we…” he murmured, leaning close enough to kiss.   

“Harry, I...” Eggsy trailed off.  Harry’s mouth was right there, and it was so tempting.   It made it hard to speak, hard to think, hard to do anything but press even closer.  Eggsy shut his eyes.  “I want to be with you, I do.  I’ve wanted it for such a long time, I just...  You don’t know who I am.  You don’t even know who you are.”  Eggsy wasn't sure he could truly articulate it, how afraid he was that even though Harry was his soulmate he had never said so because he didn't want Eggsy like that and never had.  And if Harry had all his memories, he would feel that way still.

Harry was silent for a moment.  Then he said, "Listen to me, Eggsy- I want to remember, and not just for your sake.  For mine, and for ours.  But there is a real possibility that I won’t.  You do understand that?" 

Eggsy forced his eyes open.  Harry's expression was incredibly tender.  Eggsy nodded.   

"So.  We'll go slow.  In fact, as long as I'm in this room we won't have much choice in the matter."  Harry laughed softly, but turned grave again all too quickly.  "I can't say what I was feeling or thinking before, or why I hadn't already told you who you were to me.  But I can tell you that I was always supposed to hear your name and _know_ you.  And when I did, all I wanted was to know more.  And I like what I’ve learned so far.  Very much.  I want to continue as we have been, getting to know each other.  I want to see where things go, and if they do... develop as I would dearly like them to- and as I think you do too- I don’t want to let something that may never happen keep us apart.  All right?”

“All right,” Eggsy whispered.  Because right then, looking at Harry, he couldn’t bear the thought of _anything_ keeping them apart.

*   *   *

About five percent of the population didn’t have soulmates. 

That didn’t sound like a lot, especially tacked on to the end of a lecture at school, but it was actually still a great many people.  When you took into account how rarely anyone was ever considered a good candidate for Kingsman in the first place, and what sort of... personality was required, it wasn’t surprising that a large number of Kingsman agents actually didn’t have soulmates at all. 

Harry remembered every odd look he had gotten, from the trials onward.  It was strange to so many of the others- that he had a soulmate, that the mark was so small but so distinctive, that time went on and still there was no ring to accompany it or stories of any kind.  The looks grated, painfully after Harry finally met Eggsy, after he buried himself in his work, desperate to make sense of everything that had happened.  That a promising young man had given his life for him.  That he had a soulmate who wasn’t even old enough to have his mark yet.  That his soulmate’s father was dead because of him. 

Even those of his fellow knights who did have soulmates noticed as the years passed and frowned thoughtfully, rewriting the assumptions they had made about Agent Galahad. 

The marks he bedded when the mission required it slipped curious fingers over it, asking what he thought _Eggsy_ would be like in the early years and how he had lost _Eggsy_ in the later ones.  Harry found that he liked the way they put it- liked that word, ‘lost’, as if he had just misplaced this person and been forced walk through his life with only half of his soul as a result.  It struck him as fitting, so it was exactly what he started to tell people.  He would have to apologize to Eggsy for that one day.  He would do, once he remembered the offense.   

Eventually, Harry had come to hate having anyone touch the mark- or look at it, or so much as acknowledge its existence. 

Until Eggsy did.  He opened Harry's robe one day with quivering fingers and just looked at it.  Harry didn’t remember all those years spent ashamed of it, not then- but it was as if his skin did.  When he saw the awe in Eggsy’s eyes, felt it in Eggsy’s touch as he pressed close and wrapped his arms around Harry’s ribcage, it was as if an itch that could never quite be scratched in Harry’s mind was finally, finally soothed. 

“You,” Eggsy murmured as he mapped out the letters with gentle fingers and gentler lips.  “I get you.”

Harry’s memories didn’t come rushing back, not the first time Eggsy touched him, or the second or the third or the thirtieth.  Eventually Eggsy stopped looking like he expected it.  Eventually Harry stopped wondering how it would be.  Eventually both of them stopped holding their breath.

So, of course, that was when it happened. 

*   *   *

Harry was at home by then, and he had been out of the hospital for a month.  He was technically healthy, if not quite so battle ready as he had once been, but without his memories the things he was allowed to do with himself were few.  He worked mainly in the tailor’s shop, helping out where he could, but no one begrudged him the occasional lie in. 

It was midmorning, and Eggsy was already at HQ reporting on his last mission.  Harry was alone, so he had no idea what triggered it- if indeed anything did. 

One minute he was making himself tea in a house he knew intellectually had been his before it was Eggsy’s, and suddenly he recognized... everything.  He knew the story behind every knick-knack and rug stain.  He knew it all. 

He almost dropped the cup he was holding. 

None of what Harry remembered was much of a surprise.  He had known most of it from the files Merlin allowed him to look at, and the rest he had sort of... felt, in his bones.  It was a knowledge of himself that had been only partially buried, an instinct of what his life had been like that was still there even when he couldn’t technically access it. 

So really, for Harry, the memories changed little.  But he knew that Eggsy was waiting for him to remember.  He knew that for Eggsy it was an ax hanging over everything they had built over long dates and shy kisses that turned steadily hotter, over cold nights spent pressed close against each other to ward off nightmares of things that Harry couldn’t consciously remember, over slow mornings touching and exploring, tired of waiting for revelations that might never come.  Harry knew how Eggsy looked, on top of him and reaching out to run reverent fingers over Harry’s mark.  He knew how Eggsy sounded, groaning softly as Harry eased into him from behind and laid a hand on his neck and on words he would have planned so much more carefully if he knew just who he was saying them to.  He knew how Eggsy felt, pressing Harry into the sheets and working into him in thrusts so careful it was like he thought Harry might shatter into a thousand pieces.  And in all of it- in every horrible moment and every incandescently beautiful one- Harry could feel it.  That Eggsy was afraid.

So Harry sat down on the couch, with his tea slowly getting cold, and waited for Eggsy to come home.  There wasn't much else for him to do; he and Eggsy were alone in the house now that Eggsy’s mother and sister had moved to their own flat, and he would be little good to the tailors with his hands shaking periodically as they did.

It occurred to Harry for the first time that he had been afraid too. 

Even though he was doing nothing but wait for Eggsy, Harry hardly noticed when he finally did arrive.  Suddenly Eggsy was just before him, on his knees in front of the couch.  “Hey,” he said.  “You okay?“

Harry nodded.  With so much time to prepare himself, he should have known what to say to Eggsy, he should have planned it out... but instead the words just spilled from between his lips: “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”  Eggsy looked confused- and a little scared.  It reminded Harry of how he looked when he came to see Harry in the medical wing- the third first time, in a way, that Harry met him.  Of how afraid he had been that Harry would turn him away, not want him there. 

“The things I said to you before I left for Kentucky.  You must know I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.  I was angry.  I-”

“I forgave you a long time ago, Harry.”  Eggsy said it earnestly, like those words had been waiting in the back of his mind for ages, aching to be given form at last- and then he realized what Harry was really saying and his face went worryingly blank.  “You remember now, don’t you?”

Harry nodded. 

“Did you only just-”

“Yes.  Just a few-” Harry looked at the clock and pulled a face- “hours ago.”

For a long moment, Eggsy remained about as still as Harry had ever seen him.  “And?” he finally asked. 

“And nothing.”  Harry hesitated, just for a moment, before he reached out and touched Eggsy’s face.  He cupped it as he had when he first told Eggsy how much he wanted to see if they could have something together.  “I wanted this, Eggsy.  Us.  Always.”  Harry thought of all the complications between them- all the things he had let keep them apart when it was actually the last the thing he wanted- and he could hardly believe it.

The universe had gone through the trouble of writing Eggsy’s name on his skin, and he had still almost lost everything.  

“I don’t know when I would have found the courage to tell you if I hadn’t lost my memories,” Harry said.  “I was... alone a long time.  And you were-” 

Eggsy nodded- like Harry didn’t have to find the words to finish, to explain all that Eggsy was to him.  ‘Well,” he sighed out, leaning forward to press their foreheads together.  “Maybe we got lucky, then.”

“Maybe we did.”

Eggsy went still again- but it wasn't the frightened, wild animal stillness from before.  It was a happy, slow building sort of stillness.  The stillness of someone finally letting themselves believe that they could actually keep something they had wanted, desperately, for a long time- and been terrified to lose. 

When he finally moved again, finally smiled, he lit up the room like sunrise.  "I guess we'd better think about dinner, then."

The normalcy of it all crashed into Harry, hard.  This could be their lives, now- coming home from work, having dinner, going to bed.  Getting up to do it all again in the morning.  Talking things out, deciding where to go next together...  It had been that way before, of course- but it seemed a part of Harry had been just as slow to believe that it wouldn't slip away from him somehow.  "I guess we'd better," he agreed, when he could breathe again.

"So, uh... You do still like curry, right?" Eggsy said.  Judging by the quirk of his eyebrows, Eggsy was joking- but Harry suspected the words were also more than that.

He smiled.  "Yes," he said, kissing Eggsy's smiling mouth hard.  "Yes, I do."

**Author's Note:**

> Come see me on [tumblr](http://potentiality-26.tumblr.com/).


End file.
